


To the Fade you shall return

by elfhawk3



Series: Freedom Calling [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3193817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfhawk3/pseuds/elfhawk3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dream of a mangled red future, a dispute about magic, and a decision regarding a magister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Fade you shall return

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Chant of Light, _Threnodies 5:7_

The last of the magic being thrown about the room fades away. Outside, something booms in time with the pulsing mark on her hand. Leliana goes to the door to the courtyard, while the young Tevinter mage stands over the fallen magister, his face filled with sorrow.

“He wanted to die, didn’t he? All those lies he told himself, the justifications…"  He kneels, places a hand to the man's face, and closes unseeing eyes. "He lost Felix long ago, and didn’t even notice. Oh, Alexius...”

She steps quietly forward and hesitantly lays a hand on his shoulder. “I know you care for him.” Care, because they might still stop this from happening. Stop Alexius, before he’s driven to this. She doesn’t care a thing for him, but his student has stood by her as the world crumbled before their eyes, and she can mourn for him, even if she won’t mourn for the man who brought about this destruction.

He looks up, eyes filled with unshed tears. “Once he was a man to whom I compared all others. Sad, isn’t it?" He says hoarsely, bitter laughter in his voice, self-recriminating.

“No,” she says softly. “You’re supposed to look up to your teachers.”

He draws an unsteady breath and rubs an arm against his eyes. His shoulder stiffens under her hand, sheathing his pain, and she pulls away, the moment past. He gently takes the magister's necklace off the body. "This is the same amulet he used before,” he says in a clearer voice. “I think it’s the same one we made in Minrathous. That’s a relief. Give me an hour or two to work out the spell he used, and I should be able to reopen the rift.”

"You don't have a few hours," Leliana says angrily.

"Alexius was the puppet. The master, the Elder One comes _now_. We'll delay as long as we can," Solas adds. "But you must leave now."

"You have as long as we have life. Work fast, magister,” Blackwall finishes. Both men head for Leliana by the entrance.

“Altus,” she faintly hears Dorian correct.

She chases after them, leaving Dorian mumbling to himself and the amulet. "You'll die," she says, angry and terrified, standing between them and the door, blocking their path.

"We're already dead," Blackwall says gently, patting her shoulder. The lyrium poisoning has aged him, though not as dramatically as Leliana. His hair is more gray than black and heavy crows feet mark his eerie red-rimmed eyes. The hand on her shoulder trembles with weakness. It has been a rough few hours, and the long battles to where they are now did him no favors. He is not the swordsman he was eight hours- a year- ago. "Let us do this for you. Go back, and stop this from happening."

They're going to die to try to save her. She can’t- they can’t-

She darts outside to the broken courtyard.

"Get back inside!" Leliana shouts.

The sky is still the same awful green as her hand, but the Breach is an angry beam of red, widening with each resounding boom. There is an army fast approaching the castle gates. Dorian has ten minutes if he’s lucky. They need more time.

She closes her eyes and reaches for her magic. "You need a fighting chance first." She raises her hands up, feels the lightning crackle under her skin, smells the poisoned soil that is their world now, and thinks of the first storm she summoned, years ago, anger and vengeance rich in her mind. This is no scared farmer whose house she wishes to destroy. These are her friends, telling them they will die for her. It is their choice, the situation all but demands it, but she will not send them defenseless to the wolves. She releases her will and magic into the sky.

The steady booming in the sky is joined by the natural roll of thunder, and lightning strikes near her. Rain splashes down and it burns where it touches her skin.

Hands pull hers down. "Enough, lethallan." She opens her eyes and Solas is in front of her. His eyes are the same red as Blackwall and Leliana, but little else about him has changed. She hadn't thought him so old that the horrifying aging process of Alexius' lyrium experiments wouldn't change him as well. "Do not tire yourself in a battle not yours. You must survive to fix this." He presses a kiss to her forehead and all but hurls her towards Leliana. "Close the doors behind you," he commands the spymaster as the woman drags her past Blackwall, back inside.

The doors slam shut with terrible finality. She can faintly feel the magic of the lock resetting.

"Work faster," Leliana bites out, still pulling her further inside. She places Revas next to the man and shakes her. "You stay right here until he's ready and then you stop this. Cast your spell, mage. You have as much time as I have arrows." She marches back down the stairs for a better line of sight.

"That woman terrifies me," Dorian murmurs, his eyes still fixed on the amulet, hands moving quickly.

"To see her like this is horrifying." She can hear Leliana whispering a prayer to the Maker. The screams and crackle of thunder outside is deafening, and through the high windows she can see the green and red sky constantly lit with sharp arcs of blue. It is as if the Beyond and the waking world were one and the same, the colors so unreal and the press of lyrium so strong.

"Think I've finally got this," Dorian says, the amulet floating in front of him, whole again. "Now, the trigger."

The doors explode in a shower of stone and she can hear the whistle of arrows. She steps closer to the rail. "Don't even think about, Inquisitor," Dorian warns and she stops. “You move, and we die.” An arrow whistles past her.

Below, a grinning demon is tossing Blackwall's broken body down, lightning still striking the pressing masses behind it.

Leliana has run out of arrows and is just a flash of angry movement slicing through the growing numbers. She grunts in pain as an arrow punches into her side.

"To the fucking Void with the Elder One," Revas chokes out.

Power hits her from behind as Dorian activates the amulet and the glow of the mark on her hand doubles.

"This is a dream," Dorian says non sequitur.

It startles her to greater awareness. The meeting at Redcliffe, the time rift. They were weeks ago. Before Haven fell under fire and snow and the long trek through the mountains. Everything freezes.

"That's not your line." She turns, frowns at him. "... Cole?"

She has seen the boy wandering the Beyond on the few occasions she’s stepped out, but he's never intruded in her dreams.

"No." Dorian ripples, and Solas stands before her. Dreamwalking. She should have considered that first, but she’s never seen him visit her dreams before. "Your nightmare was playing havoc further in the Fade than they normally do, and I thought it best to interrupt."

Most any other time, she'd ask how unconscious dreams might do such things, but the red future is fresh in her mind. Is before her now, the memory frozen, paused. Leliana has two arrows sticking out of her, a demon to her right that she has not noticed and will behead her before Dorian pulls Revas away to the portal. Blackwall is dead under two arrow-shot corpses, his red eyes open, unseeing. She cannot see where Solas fell. The steady boom of Corypheus' approach has stopped, but thunder and lightning continue to crackle.

"Abelas, Solas, I will try to keep my terrors to myself next time," she says in a thick voice, angry and sad and everything she felt then is fresh in her mind now thanks to the dream. She takes a long breath, tries to settle herself.

"I meant no offense. Nightmares are the dreaming mind's way of working through bad memories.”  He looks around, taking in the demons and Leliana and the red lyrium everywhere. “So this was beyond the rift at Redcliffe?"

"Yes."

"The magister's sentencing is tomorrow, is it not? Little wonder you are having a nightmare about him."

She hugs her arms to herself, tries to make herself smaller. "I cannot judge him for this. I have already judged him for this." She looks over at the magister's corpse. Even through the blood, she can see the cobweb of lightning scars on his face. "And executed him. But the Alexius I judge tomorrow has not yet helped Corypheus tear the Veil down and ruin the world. I cannot try a man for what he has not done yet."

Solas hums, thoughtful, and examines the floating amulet. "His circumstances change his decisions. You have cut him off from the decisions that created this. Is the man different now from what he was here?"

She looks to Leliana, an angry, bitter shadow of the woman she is now, poisoned and dying, and then back to Solas. "The possibility is still there. And I know it. And I cannot forget these events long enough to come to a decision that is just, instead of vengeance for something he, as he is now, has not done."

"Justice in one person's eyes may not be the same as someone else's view. What do your advisors suggest?"

"Cassandra wants him executed.”

He snorts. “Her answer for everything, it would seem.”

“I think it’s the first thing she told me, too. She’s very final with her decisions. The commander suggested making him Tranquil."

Solas recoils. "I hope you are not seriously considering it."

She shakes her head. There’s no justice in tranquility, just torture. "I'd execute him before I did that," she says. "Cullen was just giving me options. I don’t think anyone would want that, and even should someone want me to consider it seriously, it would send the wrong message to the mages. Josephine recommended fobbing him off on them to deal with. And there's wisdom in that, letting them police their own."

"But?"

"You weren't there when we met with Fiona in Redcliffe. She spoke- moved- as if controlled by another. I don’t know if it was blood magic, or just magic the Keeper did not teach me of-"

"But you think Alexius may do something to the mages to affect their decision of his punishment."

"I think it possible, yes. I don't know how probable, but can we afford the consequences of what they decide?"

His eyes are on the entrance, and the frozen figures there, halted when she stopped the dream. Lighting continues to crash. "Where did the storm come from?"

She frowns, confused by the change in subject. She supposes it is a decision she must make for herself. She would have liked to know his suggestion what to do with the magister though. "I summoned it as a delaying action." It bought them a few more minutes, at best.

"Do you often dream about casting spells?"

"Not often. Unless you count shapeshifting. This is probably the first time since I stepped off the boat in Gwaren."

He frowns and takes her glowing hand. She can feel his magic press against it. "The mark obviously has more influence on the Fade than I thought."

"The havoc going on in the Beyond is the storm from here?" she asks as he continues to study the mark.

"Come, let me show you." He leads her down the stairs, to the entrance, to the courtyard outside. Lightning strikes around them, acidic rain splattering down. The dream blurs with each step, until they are standing on one of the islands that makes up Skyhold dreaming. Judging by the stable next to them, it is the Beyond’s attempt at recreating the bailey. It is raining, though it doesn't burn like it had in her dream, in the future. The downpour is so strong she can barely make out the floating islands nearby, and she can still hear thunder.

A blonde woman comes out of the barn and noisily squishes over to stand with them, water bouncing off a shield she’s summoned to bob overhead. "Your dreams get drowned out too, First?"

"Ah-" Revas mumbles. “Dalish. Possibly a little, yes. Has it been raining for long?”

"Long enough. The Circle mages have been popping out here and sulking away to awake when they see it's no better lucid. Wusses," she says, curling her lip. "Scared of demons and spirits in the Beyond, and when we’re someplace they aren’t, they still don’t want to be here. I didn’t get to bed until late, I’m sticking it out here as long as I can. Even if it is raining inside the barn too."

Revas covers her mouth with her free hand to suppress a giggle.

"You need to rein it in," Solas says, finally releasing her hand. "And keep from casting such large spells in your dreams."

"I didn't know that would happen," she says. "I’ve never heard of dreams influencing the Beyond this way."

“Drink less water before going to sleep, your worship. Also, remember to use the privy,” Dalish suggests. Revas signs something vulgar at her, which Dalish counters with something rude about her mother.

Solas ignores the interchange. "Think of it as one more thing you can do with the mark. Closing rifts when awake, bending the Fade when asleep. Considering what Corypheus intended with the orb, we should have expected it to be able to- I wonder-" he stops, a faraway look in his eyes.

"Maybe don't dream at all and skip straight out here to lucidity if this is going to be a repeat problem," Dalish suggests. "You two have fun figuring it out, I'm going to wake Stitches for round two before he tries sneaking out." The woman closes her eyes and disappears.

“So, dispelling accidental magic,” she starts.

“Do you need me to walk you through it?” he asks dryly.

“No. I just- I’ve only summoned a storm like that once before, and I left before it stopped. I wonder how long it spun before it finally did.”

He sighs. “What was the occasion for that one?”

“My father was murdered. I wanted his killer punished,” she says, trying to keep her voice even, distant. The Keeper had taught her to keep her emotions in check, to control them instead of letting them control her. Both lightning storms were results of her forgetting the lesson.

“My apologies for bringing up unhappy memories.”

“It’s fine. How were you to know?”

He frowns at her response, but says nothing.

She closes her eyes, trying to find the center of the storm. It should be her room. She lifts a hand, fingers tracing the tug of magic. It’s slow going, something she has only rarely done. She finds spellcasting easier than reading magic.

“Does moving your hands like that help?”

She doesn’t let the question distract him from her work. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but most people are _afraid_ of magic,” she replies, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. He’s always been very polite about her foolish questions after all. “The Keeper taught me to sign while I cast so the rest of the clan was not completely surprised when I had to clear rocks away for the aravels to pass. And now the hand-waving helps when we fight, letting a teammate who can’t feel magic know you’re up to something.”

“Letting your opponent know as well,” Solas scolds.

“Well that’s what Cassandra is for. Standing between me and something trying to kill me.”

"Nor is that what I meant about your hands. Hand movements in spellcasting can reinforce a spell as well as reduce the energy needed to cast."

"Oh." She finds the center of the storm. “Ha!” She frowns- why there, of all places- and opens her eyes to look over at Solas. “Sorry about filling your room with acid rain and lightning.” She probably owes all of Skyhold an apology for her nightmare, not just the mages.

“So long as it does not happen again,” he says with a straight face, though his gaze is amused.

She thinks about how she closes rifts and tugs on the center of the magic, unraveling the spell and letting the energy fade away. The rain stops and the sky quietens.

“Your friend did have a good idea. Does lucid dreaming leave you rested? I would rather not test what other spells you can dream up to inflict on the Fade.”

She rubs her thumb into the mark, light and smoke curling around it. “I don’t know. Abelas,” she mutters. “I’m usually a calmer sleeper. Suppose we’re lucky I didn’t dream about the avalanches at Haven.”

“Your dreams will only get more restless the longer you are with the Inquisition. If you know you cannot keep yourself from dreaming about magic, you must take other steps from disturbing things.”

“The Keeper didn’t like us traveling too far Beyond,” she says. Romping around the island the clan sheltered on in dreams was one thing, but traveling further was frowned upon. The Beyond is not a safe place, especially in old places.

“The Fade here is remarkably free of memories and spirits, you should be safe enough in places like this.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Someplace as old as this, uninhabited on both sides of the Veil when we found it.” She stops, thinks of something. “You said the spirits told you about this place, but there aren’t any here.”

“And may spirits not wander the Fade as your clan does the Free Marches? They seek that which is like them, but should it stop being in one location, they will search it out in another.”

“So you met spirits who were here once, when people were, but when they left, so did the spirits?”

He shrugs. “Not to mention, our arrival en masse likely scared away the spirits who had been dwelling here.”

“Do you think they’ll come back?”

“Eventually.”

“I wonder if they would know the history of this place.” One of the stonemasons had told her the ruined prison under the front battlements predated Andraste. Who else has called Skyhold home over the ages?

“Doubtful. Spirits do not remember things as we do. And even the ones that do would not be able to give you much frame of reference for when events happened. You would be better off writing to the University of Orlais for a better timeline.”

She thinks of the history books the archivist in the library had taken from her. There’s never enough time for all the research that needs done.

Research. Dorian has started filling the library with strange Tevinter books of magic. The mages of Tevinter are all crazy about research. Literally, in many cases. The magister is obviously a man of knowledge, inventing an entirely new- and entirely terrible- branch of magic. He has no common sense to speak of, and he comes from a land where a branch of the Friends of Red Jenny should be set up in every city, but with Leliana to ride herd on him...

"Research. Of course! I need to go talk to Dorian. And Leliana. Ma serannas, lethallin," she says excitedly, kissing his cheek. "You have given me an idea." She runs for the edge of the island and leaps, letting the rush throw her into wakefulness.

* * *

Wisdom appears beside him as the Inquisitor leaps. "That's an unusual way of willing yourself awake," it says in elvhen.

She'd called him kinsman. He doesn’t know whether to be surprised or not. She’s not as standoffish as other Dalish he’s had the misfortune of meeting, and he _has_ been trying to make himself pleasant, helpful, and unremarkable. Still, it’s a large step to thinking of someone as family. The trip through the Redcliffe rift has changed something in her. Seeing her nightmare, he understands now why she has constantly been trekking through the rotunda to Leliana’s rookery to check on the spymaster. And possibly why she has been clinging so much to the Tevinter mage. Shared torments. Both have been remarkably tight-lipped about the details of the future they’d visited.

"She's very unusual,” he replies. “She wanted to know why, if Skyhold is so laden with history, the Fade here is so barren."

It raises its eyebrows. "You didn't tell her about cleansing it that first night here? No, I suppose you wouldn't. The dispersion was cruelly done, my friend. Many of them remember no other place."

He sighs and crosses his arm. "I couldn't very well leave them to speak with the mages, could I? Everyone here knew me, from my time before leaving the long dream. All it would take is one slip to the wrong person."

"And now no one is here at all and the mages begin to wonder why. You cannot have it both ways. Would you like me to go find them and coax them back?"

"Not ones that know me."

"You worry overly much. Most will have forgotten you by now. And mages never wish to speak with us anymore. Their magic is too sharp."

He nods in the direction Lavellan had leapt. "Her teacher conversed with one frequently. A spirit of peace, I think. She didn't teach the Inquisitor any offensive magic. And I found her once playing tag with a wisp in Haven. Given someone to talk to, she'd ask every question under the sun."

It laughs lightly. "You could use someone across the Veil to speak with. You spend too much time here, dreaming of what is lost. Explore how the world has changed. Surely not all of it is as terrible as you think."

"How many of Elvhenan's great cities were razed to build fortresses like Skyhold, with no care for who had built them, who yet lived in them? How many generations did it take for the survivors of the Imperium's invasion to forget their history and blame me for their every misfortune?"

"How many elves can even read your language anymore, my friend? The magic of the past is gone, and with it much of their ability to understand. Give them some leeway, they are children."

"That do not wish to learn," he says bitterly.

"All of them? Truly?" It kisses the cheek Lavellan hadn't. "The world does not change overnight. Even when commanded by one such as you. I will find you some of the Fade’s younger occupants to placate your curious dreamer, but you must do something for me. Pass through the Veil and look around you. Really, without letting old ghosts color your vision."

"Is this truly necessary?"

"You must never be afraid to learn new things, make new friends," it says with a smile. "Do not let past mistakes keep you from it."

He bows his head. "I have lost too much to want to go through that again. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." It fades away and he is left alone.


End file.
